With the unwanted arrival of Men in Black 3 this summer, Barry Sonnenfeld has been in the news - at least relative to the last five years or so. I decided to look back at his career on IMDb today, and as so often happens was gravely disappointed in what I found. When I was a teenager, I loved this guy - mainly because he was the Coen brothers first DP and worked on Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, and the supremely beautiful Miller's Crossing, but also because he made the excellent Get Shorty, the best early 90s old-TV-show movie adaptation in The Addams Family, and the brisk and enjoyable first installment of Men in Black. Recently, he was a key player in the tragically canceled Pushing Daisies.
But look at his whole career and holy shit, this guy is a hack. Even ignoring the film that put him into exile - the epically shitty RV starring the epically shitty Robin Williams - this guy's career has morphed into a horrifying descent into Hollywood garbage: Wild, Wild West, Big Trouble, the totally unwatchable Men in Black II (which Will Smith fans loyally forgot completely after its release). Ignoring for a moment the great Pushing Daisies, he's spent the last few years making a middling sitcom and TV movies. Even as a producer he's made crap the last ten years like the only bad Coen brothers movie (The Ladykillers) and motherfucking Space Chimps.
This is depressing, because Barry Sonnenfeld (while no Roger Deakins) was a great DP, and started off with a quirky yet crowd-pleasing career. I don't fault him for going where the money takes him - and I suspect that a few missteps like Wild, Wild West and Men in Black II put him into a corner that limited his career options - but, damn, that's some sad shit right there. Maybe he still has an awesome movie in him (note: this will almost certainly not be Men in Black 3) but for now, this is just another depressing visit to IMDb where you realize someone cool is not so great after all.
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